Human Resources Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2018

[Troy Winters]

It's always hard to predict the future, but at that point it's going to be up to the employers to do the investigation, completely removed from any oversight of the health and safety committee. What will happen? For those who want to follow the law, who want to provide a healthy and safe workplace status quo, we'll have healthy and safe workplaces. For those who do not wish to do that, we are going to have significant problems. We are going to have people who are able to shift harassers around an organization. They can protect; they can hide; they can keep this behaviour under wraps. In all the cases that are coming on television now down in L.A., this is what happened. They just keep hiding it, keep covering it up, and the most vulnerable workers, those who have no voice whatsoever, won't be able to do anything about it because we won't be getting the reports; the committee won't be getting the reports. No one will know what's happening unless the survivor comes out and chooses a different path. Maybe everything would have to go to grievance. Maybe we'd have to arbitrate everything and spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in court fighting arbitrations over these matters that should be dealt with easily under health and safety committees.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

MP Morrissey, please.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to begin with a statement on why are we here today. We're here today because whatever was in place has fundamentally failed too many people. We've heard compelling evidence given by individuals on how the system failed in the best of organizations. That's why our government is here today. Our government felt strongly that status quo was no longer acceptable.

We introduced a piece of legislation to bring the issue of harassment, sexual harassment and physical harassment, to an open forum to discuss it, debate it, and to bring in legislation that would put a process in place to begin to reduce that, because we heard some alarming numbers. It was about 20% of the public service. We heard that within the RCMP, when it became more open, the number went from 400 to 4,000 issues. I want your comment on that.

I sense, from a number of organizations, that there was a lot of push to protect the status quo. The status quo has not worked. I, as a member of this committee, will not support the status quo. I support this piece of legislation. We are here to hear testimony on how we can improve it, but I fully support our government's approach and the minister's approach in moving on this legislation.

I would simply ask you to comment briefly, because there has been some issue of whether we should support the legislation or not support the legislation. Well, I'm very proud to be supporting the legislation. Can we make some improvements? I suspect we can, but at least we have arrived at this state today.

Thank you.

[Phil Benson]

To be clear, Minister Hajdu and the government deserve full credit for bringing this piece of legislation forward.

We're suggesting some changes in the bill to deal with realities of the workplace and stuff that we do to make it better, that's all. It's something that must be dealt with, mental health. One Canadian in five suffers, with an estimated cost of $51 billion each year; 49% of people who suffer depression have never seen a doctor; and 50% of Canadians would not tell their co-workers of mental illness, but 72% would talk about cancer. That's the reality for people with mental health, all the problems in work. That's why we want this added to the bill, too. It's to make it better.

This is something that had to be dealt with years ago. It's something internal, and unions have been dealing with it. We've had our mental health and physical and sexual harassment policies in place for quite a while. It's something, as organizations, we are dealing with. We support it. We just urge you to make the small changes needed to make it even better, but full credit for bringing it and dealing with it, and dealing with it quickly.

[Troy Winters]

I would add that we greatly appreciate what the government is attempting to do here. Adding harassment into part II of the Canada Labour Code is huge. They are only three words in the entire bill, but they're huge and will make a significant difference. We will no longer have to have the argument whether or not committees should be talking about harassment, as long as we fix the other part where committees still get to participate. That is significant, and we commend the government greatly for making that change.

We have to remember that the part XX violence regulations have only been around for seven or eight years, and we've been working our way through the courts deciding exactly what all those words mean. We're just getting to the point now where labour programs release documents on how to interpret and implement this law. We're finally getting the ground underneath us to know how we should be working through these processes, and taking away the committees would be a terrible setback to that whole understanding. It's not that things are perfect there. Certainly not, and there are more people reporting.

I would say it's excellent work to get harassment into the code, but let us keep working under the part XX regulations, the complexities of which we're just now starting to fully understand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We only have about a minute and 10 seconds left, so I think we'll shut it down.

I want to thank all of you for being here today. Given the speed at which this legislation is moving through this House, you can see we are taking this incredibly seriously. We still have a lot of work to do to make sure this is the best piece of legislation that we can put forward, and I appreciate that you clearly have helped us today and given us some stuff to think about. Thank you very much.

To the committee, we will be adjourning this morning's meeting. We will be coming back at noon, sharp, so we have about an hour break. There will be lunch provided at noon, and we'll be finishing up our day this afternoon with the next panels.

Thank you again, and thank you to all those at the back. I appreciate your help today.

The meeting is adjourned.